Fifth generation (5G) mobile and wireless networks will provide enhanced mobile broadband communications and are intended to deliver a wider range of services and applications as compared to prior generation mobile and wireless networks. Compared to prior generations of mobile and wireless networks, the 5G architecture is service based, meaning that wherever suitable, architecture elements are defined as network functions that offer their services to other network functions via common framework interfaces. In order to support this wide range of services and network functions across an ever-growing base of user equipment (UE), 5G networks extend the network slicing concept utilized in previous generation architectures.
Within the scope of the 5G mobile and wireless network architecture, resources are shared between a number of subscribers (e.g., UE). As a results, overall bandwidth available to subscribers is shared based on one or more parameters (e.g., channel conditions, network congestion, signal to noise ratio, resource availability at the evolved node B (eNodeB)). As a result, even though the theoretical maximum throughput that the UE can support is known, it is difficult to estimate or predict the amount of throughput any specific UE can actually achieve over the network. As a result, upper layer protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, UDP, etc.) cannot make accurate decisions for traffic over cellular interfaces (e.g., modem).